WP Audio Player Plugin 1.4 Now Available

Though can read all about the updates on the plugin homepage, I thought I’d share some of the updates that went into this particular release, specifically from a developer’s perspective.

Notes For WP Audio Player 1.4

The challenges that came with updating the plugin to its current version revolved largely around the audio element, browser inconsistencies, and adding some enhancements to the user’s experience in WordPress.

The audio Element

As it stands right now, the audio element isn’t supported across all of the major browsers. Furthermore, in some browsers, such as Firefox, the MP3 codec is not supported.

This presented the problem of needing to introduce a fallback.

The standard embed player when the audio element or MP3’s are not supported.

Since not not all browser yet support the audio element, the plugin does the best it can to determine if it should fall back to a normal embed element.

If so, it will display the embed element and will then display a message as to why the responsive player doesn’t display.

Furthermore, I’ve made no effort to support anything earlier than IE10. Because of the fallback aspects of the plugin and because I want to do what I can to move the web forward, I’ve decided that – at least for this plugin – nothing earlier than IE9 will be supported.

Updates To The Dashboard

In addition to improve the cases where a user attempts to embed a file that resides on another domain, I’ve also introduced the ability for users to select MP3’s that exist in their media library.

The updated dashboard listing MP3’s in the media player.

Simply click on the file in the available list and then save your post. Clear the text box if you opt to remove the player.

I definitely thing there’s room for improvement in the usability, but since this is a free plugin and I strive for iterative development, I figure that this is one step forward.

What’s Coming?

Because the project is available on GitHub, you can easily see the features that are planned and the issues that others are having.

If you’re a developer, feel free to commit; if you’re a user, feel free to try it out and file any issues that you may see.

At any rate, this update is relatively large in terms of what it offers to end users both site visitors and site administrators. Dig any and all feedback!

On lakewooducc.org, a website I maintain, people have been having problems playing mp3 files from links (in the browser and not downloading). The problem is that, if they have a bad internet connection, the file will stop playing at some point. I installed your plugin and it works great, but the same connectivity issues exist for them even with your player.

Is there a way to increase the size of the buffer on your player so when they’re streaming the file it’ll get them past any funky connectivity?

Thanks for the link – makes diagnosing the problem much easier for me.

So the bad news is that there’s not much I can do about the buffering right now. I’ll take a look at it and see if there’s anything I can do in the future, but this is largely at the mercy of a number of factors that are out of a developer’s control.

That said, I do listen to all the feedback and do what I can to make these plugins the best I can :).

I’ve been using your plugin for a few months now, and just noticed a problem with the new update. Trying to access the audio on posts from a mobile web browser makes it so the audio player doesn’t even appear. With older versions of the plugin, the audio player would be there and perfectly useable. Any work around for this? Thanks!

I’m using the newest release of the Dolphin Browser on Android 2.3, The stock Android web browser on Android 2.3, As well as IE for Windows 8 Phone. And it doesn’t appear on any of those web browsers.

Devices were the HTC Thunderbolt and the Lumia 920.

Thanks for working hard on this man! It’s a great plugin. Though, a different problem I’m having with it, when you’re on the homepage of my site, the audio plugin won’t show in the posts. You have to actually click the individual posts to get the audio player to show up, Not sure if that’s a bug or not, but it’s something that’s always happened with it. Thanks again! :D

I’m new to the whole blog site/website game. I recently had a different audio player installed but it wouldn’t run on some devices. So I have chosen yours for its compatibility to Apple. Sadly for the life of me I cannot seem to make it work.

I believe the coding to be the major issue. Again, I’m really new to all of this.

Hi, I’m using the player on my music blog and it looks great! – on desktops that is. The reason I picked this plugin is because the responsiveness.. but it doesn’t show in iOS (both chrome and safari). What could be the problem?

If you’re using WP Audio Player 1.9, then check out the latest release notes. There were some major improvements that have been released in the past two days; however, there were known issues with the player in both iOS and and in mobile Chrome.

1.9

Disabling the auto-start in browsers that use the default embed element (rather than the responsive player). Introducing support for a default player for IE8 Resolving responsive functionality issues with Firefox 18+, IE9+, Chrome, and Safari Making sure the player uses the mobile device’s native player for playing the audio. Will implement the responsive player when functionality for major mobile devices has been resolved.

1.8

Moving the Firefox warning message to the admin dashboard so that it doesn’t display on the public-facing side of the site.

I’d rather not have the plugin half-work in some devices and not other, so I made a decision to use each device’s built-in player until this issue is completely resolved.

The responsive nature of the plugin still works for users who may resize their browser on their desktop, but I’m aiming to have this issue resolve in the next release. It’s the last major feature I want to have fixed before it hits 2.0.

Thanks for such a great plugin!! It was working great for me, but lately it doesn’t seem to work on mobile phones. I have an iPhone 5, but also tried on iPhone 4 and Android phones. Am I missing something? Thanks for your help! I really don’t want to have to use another plugin. Here is an example link: http://hiphop101online.com/archive-show-playlist-48-january-8-2013/

Hi Tom, thanks for responding! The player works perfect on desktops, but it doesn’t play on mobile phones. It’s possible the size of the file is too large (about 100mb), but I’ll even try to let it load for a very long time and it still doesn’t play. I’m not exactly sure when it stopped working, to be honest. Maybe a couple of months? When I first installed it late last year, it was working great on mobile phones.

What version was available late 2012? Will you be able to share that version with me? The old version was working fine. I think it’s the new version that isn’t functioning properly on mobile phones. Thanks, Tom!!

I’m also having trouble getting this to work. I’ve tried inserting the media into my post by both inputting the url, and also just the .mp3 file. Neither worked, and I can’t find any clear instruction on how to properly use this plugin.

I’m going to do what I can to take a look at this as soon as I get a chance; however, right now, it looks like the second week in July is the earliest that I’m going to be able to take a deep dive into this in order to diagnose it.

I wish it was sooner, but I’ve gotta prioritize some of my paying gigs over the free plugins :)!

Development is set to resume on WP Audio Player in the next two weeks during which I’ll be sharing updates here on the blog.

If the audio player isn’t showing on your post, this could be a result of another plugin or theme conflict, a style conflict, a browser issue, of something else.

I’m more than happy to resolve it, but let me work on the next version first and see if it doesn’t resolve any issues.

In the mean time, check this out and see if it doesn’t help:

It introduces a meta box to each post page that allows you to supply the URL to any audio file and will then append the player to the end of the post. This way, you’re able to upload your media using the built in Media Uploader, and then use the provided URL to add the player to your post.

Love the plug-in, better than the way PowerPress displays, however I noticed that when I navigate to one of my podcast pages on a mobile device, the player does not display properly. It just displays as a plain black bar. You can hit the black bar and it will start playing, but for new visitors who don’t know this, there is nothing that clearly displays a “Play” button.

Hi there. I need to know if this player can replace the now defunct Yahoo! Web Player. Basically, it needs to automatically detect ALL of the mp3 links in a post WITHOUT having to retype all of the links. I need this because my client’s blog dates back to 2006… and it would be HELL to have to find all of the links for 100s if not 1000s of posts. Please advise.

I have just upgraded to WordPress 3.6 and unfortunately WP Audio does not work :( Any ideas on an update to support 3.6 may be out? I am in a bit of a rush and stuck without a player so sorry to ask if it is in the works!

Also, I wonder if you know of a similar plugin that does the same job for YouTube videos? Could be a good little add-on to a future update?

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